ounting, out–of–control healthcare costs and an aging population compel us to radically change the way we understand and manage, or treat, disease. The dominant medical paradigm of the human body as a collection of separate systems is outdated. Breakthroughs in our understanding of genetics, epigenetics and multi–omics paint a more complex and densely interconnected picture of human biology at the cellular level. At that level, myriad competing constituents function as a finely tuned coherent whole that maximizes the chances of survival and reproduction.
In this evolutionary medicine paradigm disease manifests when a biological agent is “cheating” the “consensus” of somatic cells regulating germline behavior. Cancer is an example of such cell lineages escaping normal regulatory control and pursuing their own reproductive pathways. Therefore, instead of aiming to completely eradicate a tumor, an alternative strategy would be to find ways to constrict the malign evolutionary path of cancer cells on a long–term basis. New techniques for safe and effective gene–editing are ushering the real possibility of such new ways for managing and treating disease.
There are, of course, many ethical issues in synthetic biology to be debated and resolved, and guidelines that medical practitioners need to produce and agree upon. Although editing somatic cells seems to be generally acceptable, tinkering with the human germline harks back to eugenics. And yet the benefits in improving global health are profound, including how we must adapt, and possibly reengineer, our bodies in the hostile environment of outer space as we aspire to inhabit worlds beyond Earth.
The business model of healthcare must also change. We currently have systems that are mostly reactive: A patient comes in with a complaint, or an emergency, and the system scrambles resources to treat them. And yet, regardless of all the optimization efforts and investments that healthcare systems have implemented over the years, costs keep rising at an alarming rate. This is not a management problem but a conceptual one, and the only sensible approach to prevent the collapse of healthcare systems is to transform them from mostly reactive to mostly proactive. Wearables, big data and new ways of detecting and interpreting signals from the human body can enable technology–driven models of disease prevention and efficient, effective, disease management protocols that improve patient well–being while removing pressure, and cost, from overburdened healthcare systems.
Artificial Intelligence has a major role to play in this transformation, but AI alone cannot solve the current, foundational, problems. AI is not a panacea but a tool that must be properly used—i.e. in combination with breakthroughs in biotech, as well as the adoption of alternative paradigms in medicine and healthcare delivery as described above. When so used, it can confer massive benefits to patients and society at large.
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We must rethink what disease is and how we treat it
Image by Towfiqu barbhuiya via Pexels.
June 16, 2026
Rising costs and breakthrough developments in biology demand a shift to proactive healthcare and a new way of defining disease, writes Dr. George Zarkadakis.
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ounting, out–of–control healthcare costs and an aging population compel us to radically change the way we understand and manage, or treat, disease. The dominant medical paradigm of the human body as a collection of separate systems is outdated. Breakthroughs in our understanding of genetics, epigenetics and multi–omics paint a more complex and densely interconnected picture of human biology at the cellular level. At that level, myriad competing constituents function as a finely tuned coherent whole that maximizes the chances of survival and reproduction.
In this evolutionary medicine paradigm disease manifests when a biological agent is “cheating” the “consensus” of somatic cells regulating germline behavior. Cancer is an example of such cell lineages escaping normal regulatory control and pursuing their own reproductive pathways. Therefore, instead of aiming to completely eradicate a tumor, an alternative strategy would be to find ways to constrict the malign evolutionary path of cancer cells on a long–term basis. New techniques for safe and effective gene–editing are ushering the real possibility of such new ways for managing and treating disease.
There are, of course, many ethical issues in synthetic biology to be debated and resolved, and guidelines that medical practitioners need to produce and agree upon. Although editing somatic cells seems to be generally acceptable, tinkering with the human germline harks back to eugenics. And yet the benefits in improving global health are profound, including how we must adapt, and possibly reengineer, our bodies in the hostile environment of outer space as we aspire to inhabit worlds beyond Earth.
The business model of healthcare must also change. We currently have systems that are mostly reactive: A patient comes in with a complaint, or an emergency, and the system scrambles resources to treat them. And yet, regardless of all the optimization efforts and investments that healthcare systems have implemented over the years, costs keep rising at an alarming rate. This is not a management problem but a conceptual one, and the only sensible approach to prevent the collapse of healthcare systems is to transform them from mostly reactive to mostly proactive. Wearables, big data and new ways of detecting and interpreting signals from the human body can enable technology–driven models of disease prevention and efficient, effective, disease management protocols that improve patient well–being while removing pressure, and cost, from overburdened healthcare systems.
Artificial Intelligence has a major role to play in this transformation, but AI alone cannot solve the current, foundational, problems. AI is not a panacea but a tool that must be properly used—i.e. in combination with breakthroughs in biotech, as well as the adoption of alternative paradigms in medicine and healthcare delivery as described above. When so used, it can confer massive benefits to patients and society at large.
